It’s now official; GLOW 2005 has been launched having gone through all the preparatory stages. Everyone is glowing as well; they should, because they are now fully ensconced in making this week another milestone in UNV’s long list of achievements.
How did the day go? Well, there was the Plenary with lots of blue balloons. Novel idea to use balloons as landmarks for Home Teams and these Teams or Groups all 30 of them named after Planets, Space Ships and Stars (not those Stars of Entertainment Tonight, or any of the big awards - they are the real thing from the constellation of stars. So you could be in Venus, Orion, the Moon and you might even find yourself in a Hubble (as in the space craft).
Introductions, practice runs with the Digivote which was fun all preceded the official opening by Ad. Incidentally, what is a Digivote? Well simply put, it seems to take the tedium out of reporting and evaluation as you can select your responses electronically in the plenary and actually see the results on the big screen. Behind the scenes, a computerized system analyses the numbers and projects it onto the screen.. UNV is truly into the 21st century with its state of the art gadgets. Remember the Zoomerang for the needs assessment!
The two big screens were used for snappy interviews of various UNVs and HQ staff on the past, present and future impressions on UNV. The interviews set the tone for what would come through the day. In fact, Ad’s message picked up some of the themes such as where UNV is going. And there was that Web again. Impressive on the big screen but this time superimposed not with spiders but with themes such as MDGs. He wanted us to keep the image in mind of the UNVs out there being in the centre of the web and Bonn building around the centre. I also liked the message he put across in ‘the whole as being more than the sum of the parts’. He talked about partners, inclusion, boldness, confidence and UNV’ niche. But when he mentioned the world’s 6 billion and juxtapose that with the next number of our 7,000 UNVs out there making a difference – it blows one’s mind. Questions, answers and then lunch. Glowing takes energy so I’m sure all were ready to eat.
Well fed and happy, the Share Fair officially opened by none less than the Mayor of Bad Honnef . That was not all. There was a representative of the Ministry of Economic Cooperation, another partner and UN family support from the UNCCD Head. Did you know they are one of our partners and not just a neighbour and member of our family in Haus Carstanjen? The informal atmosphere of the official opening was a good setting to squeeze our ways through the throngs of bodies and stands laden with posters, artefacts and things to eat and drink of the Share Fair displays. We could touch, taste and even play: Yes, some stands even encouraged a bit of competition.
More on what we did or crammed into the first day? Well, we had the chance to be on all fours – a choice you could make but it was practical – this was serious stuff – we were simply glowing generating those ideas - because we had to build/create a model of our impressions of where UNV is going. The directions were, oh, so creative! Again, the sky was the limit with boundless ideas floating about aided, of course, by some balloons. Catchy descriptions explained some. Examples? Well there was ‘V is to be’; UNV bridge to partners and to MDGs; Diversity was a favourite – used many times and covered many positive aspects; Inclusion, and so on…
But there was still the Bar-B-Q to go and who would have thought that after weekends of sunny skies and warm days it would rain on our B-B-Q evening? But not to be daunted, it was off to the Ballroom in the rain. In any event what better place to have our National Dress Parade and the Talent Show in a simply huge and impressive ballroom? What a kaleidoscope of colours and diversity (that word pops up again!) – we are truly global. Incidentally, our next CD will be the GLOW song featured by the GLOW quintet or was that a sextet?
Did someone say something about dancing ‘till dawn…?
Day one had gone without a hitch!
